ADRIAN — A state prison inmate risked a longer stay in prison Friday to challenge felony charges that he burned another inmate with a mixture of hot water and Vicks VapoRub.

The gamble failed and Jonathan Alan Horner, 28, was bound over to Lenawee County Circuit Court on charges of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm and habitual offender. He faces up to a 15-year prison term if convicted. A plea offer to a four-year assault charge was withdrawn by a Lenawee County prosecutor.

Horner’s former cellmate, Bud Bryant Jr., testified at the hearing in Lenawee County District Court that Horner was the man who seriously burned his face. Vision was damaged in his right eye and plastic surgery was needed for burn scars, he said.

An ointment he said smelled like Vick’s was mixed in a cup of hot water that Bryant said Horner threw at him without warning on Aug. 27. The assault happened at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Madison Township.

“It stuck to my face,” Bryant said.

Before it could be removed, he said, it burned through his skin and injured his eye. He was kept for nine days in the burn center at the University of Michigan Health System, he said. Vision in his right eye is still blurry, he said.

“They said it’s possible to get my vision back, but there’s no guarantee,” Bryant said.

Bryant testified he was talking with another inmate inside a restroom in his housing unit when Horner walked in. He noticed Horner was carrying a white cup, he said. He then “splashed the side of my face. It was hot real hot,” Bryant said.

He was hit several times before he got away and ran for medical help, he said.

Bryant said he was not aware Horner was angry with him, but told defense attorney John Glaser he had heard a rumor that Horner was calling him a “snitch.”

“You never said anything about putting a hit on Horner?” Glaser asked. “You don’t know how my client got marks on his neck? Did you ever choke him?”

Bryant denied the accusations.

Assistant prosecutor Rodney Leon asked that Horner be bound over for trial on added charges of assault with intent to maim and assault with intent to do great bodily harm because of the potentially permanent injury to Bryant’s eye and serious skin burns.

Judge Laura J. Schaedler ruled there was not enough evidence of a specific intent to injure Bryant’s eye. She ordered him bound over the added charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm as well as the original felonious assault count.

Page 2 of 2 - Glaser had Horner sign a waiver, entering “not guilty” pleas without having to appear in circuit court for arraignment on Jan. 2.

Horner is serving a 12- to 24-year prison term he received for a 2003 armed robbery conviction in Lapeer County. Bryant is serving sentences adding up to seven to 20 years for first-degree home invasion and felony firearm convictions in Wayne County in 2006.